Dutch Passion starts with a biologist. Henk van Dalen studied biology and pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam between 1970 and 1976 and had been growing cannabis since 1972, supplying seeds locally long before there was a company. By the early eighties his Passion #1 was testing at 18% THC, which he describes as matching the premium imported material of the day.
The company was formally established in Amsterdam in 1987, and calls itself one of the world's oldest cannabis seedbanks and one of the few remaining original seed companies. In 1988 van Dalen opened Homegrown Fantasy, which Dutch Passion says was the first coffeeshop anywhere to sell only Dutch-grown cannabis.
Its best known claim is feminized seed. Van Dalen noticed that female plants throw male flowers late in life and therefore produce female pollen. The first experiment gave him 50 seeds and, in the company's words, "all of them went on to become female cannabis plants; it was a historic moment." Whoever gets the credit historically, the technique is why most seeds sold today are feminized: no more culling males.
The catalogue stays small on purpose, roughly 50 varieties across regular, feminized and autoflower, and the company says new strains are run through live internet grow diaries by customers before they go on public sale. White Widow, Blueberry, Skunk #11, Power Plant and Mazar are the names that carried it.
